Buy it... only if you've heard Kevin Kiner's distinctly youthful
re-interpretation of the franchise in the film itself and appreciated
the rocking electric guitars and other traditionally "non-Star
Wars" sounds in context.

Avoid it... if you expect to hear anything remotely respectful to
John Williams' famous music for the franchise, for the adaptation of his
themes and styles is extremely minimal.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #777

WRITTEN
8/9/08

BUY IT

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: (Kevin Kiner) As if
writer, director, and producer George Lucas' life wasn't already clearly
defined by his infamous universe of Star Wars, he has followed
through with hints that he would someday produce an animated television
series based on the concept. The six live-action feature films in the
saga have formed a neatly wrapped series with a massive cult following,
and hopes have long involved the possibility that Lucas would create the
final three films of his original nine-part saga. Instead, in 2008, he
put the finishing touches on the animated series to run on TNT and the
Cartoon Network, a concept that thrilled Lucas to such a degree that he
insisted that its pilot be made into a feature film for theatrical
distribution. The plot of the series covers the three years of events in
between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, when
the Jedi and the clone armies of the Galactic Republic are waging war
against Count Dooku's own clone army and, by proxy, Senator Palpatine
and his increasing influence. While the major voices from the films do
not carry over, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, and Anthony Daniels
do, allowing for at least some continuity. Yoda, R2D2, and Jabba the
Hutt are additional familiar faces, joined by a couple of notable new
characters, including an apprentice for Anakin Skywalker who will extend
through the life of the show. It was Lucas' intent to return to the
humorous atmosphere that defined parts of A New Hope, offering
numerous funny plot twists and circumstances that are a distant cry from
the desperate tone of Revenge of the Sith. The style of the
animation, mirroring the scope of Japanese anime, is of an angular kind
that does not attempt to recreate the exact likenesses of the films'
people and ships. These two major differences (the humor and the
adaptation of the imagery into the animated realm) caused a different
environment in which the style of John Williams' famous scores for the
franchise would not be a direct fit. Lucas turned to veteran television
composer Kevin Kiner to adapt parts of Williams' themes into the music
for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Kiner is not only quite talented in his career of writing
episodic scores, but he has also had the opportunity in times past to
adapt other major composers' themes into a surrounding underscore, most
notably for film music collectors on 1999's The Wing Commander.
In that film, he adopted many of the mannerisms of David Arnold's pomp
and bombast of the era for an adequate score, and here, he's tasked with
the far more difficult emulation of Williams. It has been done before,
with Joel McNeely's take on the Star Wars universe for the 1996
multimedia products of Shadows of the Empire remaining perhaps
the most superior work of that composer's career. There is a significant
difference between McNeely's faithful adaptation of Williams' sound and
what Kiner has done for The Clone Wars, though. In fact, for
quite literally 97% of the music contained on the 67-minute album
release for The Clone Wars, you have absolutely no indication
whatsoever that this is a Star Wars score. Kiner is so completely
disloyal to John Williams' themes for the franchise's first five films
that it's a wonder the maestro's name exists on the packaging at all
(insert comments about product marketing here). Given how far off
Williams' established path of the saga's music that Kiner has traversed,
you have to wonder if Lucas specifically asked the composer not to even
try to continue Williams' style for the series. Fans who have grown up
loving the consistent structure, themes, and style of Williams' music
for the franchise will be extremely disappointed by The Clone
Wars; so much of their love of the concept rides on Williams'
musical identity for it, and with extensive use of "Duel of the Fates"
from The Phantom Menace heard in this animated film's trailers,
most such fans will look at the "Original Star Wars Themes and Score by
John Williams" line on the album's packaging and make the incorrect
assumption that Kiner has succeeded at any level in matching Williams'
sound for the franchise. As a standalone score, The Clone Wars is
quite decent in parts. In fact, it features several excellent new
melodic themes and action motifs that return throughout the work. But
it's not a Star Wars score, and that's a point that simply can't
be overlooked.

Kiner intentionally takes the score in a more hip
direction, translating the title fanfare into a more daring, youthful
variant with heavy drum pad-style percussion and an altered tempo to
some of the progressions in the theme. This reworking will undoubtedly
please a crowd of enthusiasts for a new day in the saga, but purists
that swear by Williams' original six scores will be driven nuts by
Kiner's changes. Only in the first 20 seconds of the film and the
50-second "End Credits" is the famed theme heard at all, and with its
ranks mutilated to such an extent, perhaps we should be thankful. This
version of the theme is, just like old midi synth versions of the theme
from the late 1980's, nothing more than lame. Indeed, lame. And
slightly embarassing, too. The only other cue on the album release that
actually directly quotes any Williams theme is the penultimate
"Fight to the End," which offers a staggered fragment of "The Imperial
March" and one complete statement of "The Force Theme" at its climax.
The latter performance is less compelling than the similar one during
"Anakin is Free" in The Phantom Menace. There are pieces of
underscore in parts that attempt to mimic Williams' established ideas,
including the "Throne Room" theme from A New Hope in "Admiral
Yularen" and, interestingly, the "Cloud City" motif from The Empire
Strikes Back in "Obi-Wan's Negotiation." Outside of this usage,
Kiner does attempt here and there to emulate Williams' distinct sounds,
but more often than not he fails. Instead, the score sounds like an odd
combination of Brian Tyler's Children of Dune, Jerry Goldsmith's
The 13th Warrior (keep your ears open for a direct pull from that
score early in the first "General Loathsom" track), and Kiner's own
highly varied work for the History Channel's multi-part "The History of
Sex" series from several years back. Pieces of the David
Arnold/Christopher Dodd sound from Wing Commander also echo in
The Clone Wars, which, when combined with the faint Williams
influences, produces a sound somewhat like Jane Antonia Cornish's 2007
score for Island of Lost Souls. The large-scale action sequences,
usually fully orchestral and choral, have a tendency to give you a
perpetually nagging feeling that they're out of place.

Along with the mandatory orchestral and choral aspects,
Kiner uses a wide variety of specialty instruments that go far beyond
Williams' emphasis on traditional orchestral elements. For instance,
during "Obi-Wan to the Rescue" and a few subsequent battle cues, Kiner
lets loose with rocking electric guitars in heavy metal form, completely
abandoning the Williams sound. Cliches such as the use of exotic female
vocals for location accents are joined by the use of an erhu, a few
non-traditional woodwinds, and the medium range of drums to provide that
distinct Children of Dune style that appealed so popularly to a
younger generation of science fiction viewers. An electric bass and
other synthetic pulsating effects pop up now and again, replacing
Williams' vigorous bass strings with a sound all-too-familiar, as in
"Escape from the Monastery," to Hans Zimmer's realm. In "Courtyard
Fight," you start wondering (amongst the synthesizers and electric
guitars) if this is a Remote Control venture. The source cues in The
Clone Wars make no attempt at a truly other-worldly sound, and by
the time you hear the tandem of "Ziro's Nightclub Band" (standard sleazy
jazz with saxophone and small band) and "Seedy City Swing" (which is
just a step removed from a 1930's Busby Berkeley musical), you'll have
written the score off as a failure. One of the impressively unique and
inspiring aspects of Williams' scores was their ability to address the
environments of other planets with completely alien sounds, even if they
made use of an orchestra or something like an electric guitar. Kiner's
work is instead heavily rooted on Earth. Heck, the muted trumpets in
"Infiltrating Ziro's Lair" are even a nod to the good old days of film
noir treachery (or perhaps Bernard Herrmann, which wouldn't be a
surprise). The links between this work and Children of Dune are
perhaps the brightest points of comparison, for the Middle-Eastern
treatment provided to both Arrakis and Tatooine in the respective
productions offers some of the more relaxing material in both scores.
That instrumentation carries over to the several cues featuring Jabba
the Hutt, though don't expect to hear any of the giant slug's famous
tuba theme here, not even creatively adapted as it was by Williams in
The Phantom Menace.

One of the better aspects of Kiner's work is that he
does offer and consistently develop several themes for the characters of
The Clone Wars. Anakin receives his own strong action theme, as
does his apprentice, "Ahsoka," and the general heroic appeal of the
Jedi. The theme for this last group is a head-scratcher because, as it's
best heard in "The Jedi Council," Kiner generally follows the same
progressions of Williams' theme for "The Force" without actually stating
it. The theme's performance at the outset of the second "General
Loathsom" cue is very attractive, however. Kiner's outright action music
holds its own, heard best in "Battle of Christophsis" and "Sneaking
Under the Shield." In both cues, Kiner uses a pulsating choral
accompaniment to a propulsive march structure that successfully conveys
the gravity of the ensuing battles. Still, this material never achieves
the same authentic bravado as McNeely's very impressive action cues in
Shadows of the Empire. The score has continuity problems compared
to Williams' works, with none of the themes clearly delineated in the
title sequences or suites of their own. As such, most casual listeners
who won't take the time to try to identify Kiner's original themes will
simply be left cold by the absence of Williams' themes. The recording
had promise, with The City of Prague Philharmonic and
orchestrator/conductor Nic Raine familiar to any film music collector
due to their lengthy list of enjoyable compilations of film score
re-recordings. Their performances here are adequate, but not noteworthy;
their recording and mixing lacks the flair and reverb that they feature
on their Silva Screen releases. Overall, if the The Clone Wars
score was for any other sci-fi universe, it would be a solid three-star
effort, if not better. But as a member of the Star Wars universe,
it miserably disappoints. With so many compelling themes by Williams not
utilized, including "Anakin's Theme" and "Across the Stars" (both
applicable in these circumstances), this score is frustratingly
irritating. Sure, the saga has obviously taken on a new, youthful and
vigorous form... but Williams' musical identity for the saga is just too
powerful and engrained to forget. By fighting it, failure was Kiner's
destiny. **@Amazon.com: CD or
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